Strategy That Works: How Winning Companies Close the Strategy-to-Execution Gap

How to close the gap between strategy and execution

Two-thirds of executives say their organizations don’t have the capabilities to support their strategy. In Strategy That Works, Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi explain why. They identify conventional business practices that unintentionally create a gap between strategy and execution. And they show how some of the best companies in the world consistently leap ahead of their competitors. Based on new research, the authors reveal five practices for connecting strategy and execution used by highly successful enterprises such as IKEA, Natura, Danaher, Haier, and Lego. These companies:

• Commit to what they do best instead of chasing multiple opportunities
• Build their own unique winning capabilities instead of copying others
• Put their culture to work instead of struggling to change it
• Invest where it matters instead of going lean across the board
• Shape the future instead of reacting to it

Packed with tools you can use for building these five practices into your organization and supported by in-depth profiles of companies that are known for making their strategy work, this is your guide for reconnecting strategy to execution.

Paul Leinwand is Global Managing Director, Capabilities-Driven Strategy and Growth, with Strategy&, PwC’s strategy consulting business. Cesare Mainardi is the former CEO of Booz & Company and Strategy&. They are the principal architects of capabilities-driven strategy and the authors of The Essential Advantage and Cut Costs and Grow Stronger. Both are adjunct professors of strategy at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.

Art Kleiner is editor-in-chief of strategy+business, the management magazine published by PwC.